19.02.2004

European Left Party: small step forward

On January 11, representatives from 11 parties met in Berlin and agreed to call a founding congress of this new organisation. Tina Becker reports

On January 11, representatives from 11 parties met in Berlin and agreed to call a founding congress of this new organisation. The main reason for its formation is financial rather than political: from 2008, cross-border alliances can apply for considerable funding from the European Union.

The list of participating organisations reads like the Who’s who of ‘official communism’: the Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany), the Communist Parties of Austria, France and Slovakia, Spain’s Izquierda Unida, the Greek Synapsismos (the Communist Party of Greece is still thinking it over), etc. No organisation from Britain is represented.

The participation of Rifondazione Comunista (Italy) has given the formation much needed credibility. For months, the comrades were undecided if they should go with their ‘official communist’ friends, with whom they have been cooperating for years in the United Left Group in the European parliament (GUE-NGL). On the other side, the ‘socialists’ were pleading with Rifondazione to join them: the French LCR, the Scottish Socialist Party - and even our own Socialist Alliance was still a potential player then. Perhaps it is little wonder that our Italian comrades stuck with what they knew - and for the moment condemned the ‘socialists’ to oblivion.

There is to be an ELP founding congress by May 9 at the latest, so that the new formation can contest this year’s European parliamentary elections. The first full congress is planned for the end of November or the beginning of December. Although it is stated in the minutes of the January 11 meeting that “all steps of the founding process have to be organised in a transparent and open way, enabling other parties to join the further preparations of founding the ELP”, information has not exactly been forthcoming and invitations have been sent out very selectively.

Its ‘programme’, which already seems decided, has eight demands, ranging from the worthy “redistribution of wealth from rich to poor” to “no weapons of mass destruction, from the Atlantic to the Urals” and “no attacks on human rights in the name of fighting terrorism, but an open Europe with human rights and asylum for refugees”. It even dares to mention the c-word: “A fight against the domination by capital and the rule of capitalism”. Compared to Respect’s ‘programme’ in Britain, this reads like hard-core stuff.

But there is no reason to get too enthusiastic about this project: most of the participants have a history of happily sharing and abusing power in capitalist governments. For example, since being part of the coalition running Berlin, the PDS has taken Realpolitik to new depths: collective wage agreements cancelled, public services shut down, libraries closed - provoking mass protests from Berlin workers. The French PCF supported many of the anti-working class policies of its Socialist Party government partners, as did Rifondazione Comunista in a former existence, when it supported the so-called Olive Tree coalition.

Crucially, the short ELP manifesto lacks any plan about how to build a people’s Europe from below. There is nothing on how to democratise the European Union, no mention about the abolition of the unelected commissioners, nothing about the overcoming petty national divisions and governmental horse-trading. The comrades have not even included a demand for European-wide trade unions or other working class formations.

It would be foolish to simply dismiss the ELP. It is a step forward. But in its current manifestation its use for the European working class is extremely limited.